Feet and Mustaches.....

I went to the doctor the other day.  After my half marathon, my left knee and right foot have been pretty jacked up and I haven't been able to run not to mention walk very far.  I have been a big baby/lazy/avoiding bad news for the last few months and have basically suffered in silence. Just kidding, I complained a lot.  Nothing makes the pain go away like forced sympathy.  I know, it sounds like something most people would get checked out right away, but my motto when it comes to potential bad news and/or any strenuous effort on my part is "Hey, ignoring things usually makes them go away, right!?" It wasn't until I realized that I can't walk in high heels that I finally gave in.

It turns out that ignoring things doesn't make them go away.  In fact, it makes them worse.  Much worse. (This unfortunately applies to everything in life and not just my feet.) So, I'm sitting in the doctors office with my pants legs rolled up and a blue hospital booty on my right foot already feeling kinda like a dorky freakazoid.  They were kind enough to leave the door open to my room so that everyone walking by that knew me could walk in and say, "Hey, what happened?  Something wrong with your foot?"  Good thing I'm not sarcastic at all or I would have said, "Nope, nothing wrong here...sometimes I just like to roll up my pants legs, put a blue booty on my right foot, and sit around for hours on these sweet beds with the paper on them that they have in doctor's offices and read 10 year old articles out of People magazine. Did you know that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up!?"  I am SO glad I'm never sarcastic.  ANYway, back to the story.  I am sitting in this room feeling all awkward and the doc comes in with his Physician's Assistant.  I go through the normal routine of telling them that even though all my paperwork says Kathryn.... please call me Katie.   And as per the usual....they call me Kate, Katelyn, or...just stick with Kathryn.  Kathryn sounds like somebody old, somebody responsible, somebody that would go to the doctor as soon as she noticed there was a problem.  Kathryn would probably keep her apartment clean all the time, not put things off, send Vera Wang brand thank you notes..and do so in a timely manner, probably even drink tea from tiny teacups (Man, those tiny cups can only hold two sips worth of tea!!  Good for tea parties with imaginary friends when you are 4...not good for grownups that need everything super sized and convenient.  Plus, Kathryn wouldn't have tea parties with imaginary friends...she would have tea parties with heads of state).  Sorry 'bout that....back to the story (Kathryn wouldn't abbreviate "about").

The doc starts doing the exam, but instead of speaking to me, the patient, he starts rolling off stats whilst looking directly at his PA.  "Leg alignment is good...knees and ankles touch. 9% hyperextension of the knees. (Is that bad!?) As you can see when we push her toes toward her knee she doesn't have much flexible mobility.  The tight Achilles is a sign of plantar fasiitis."  (What!?  What was that big word!? That sounds serious.) Then he actually looks at me as if he just realized that there is a person attached to the legs and feet he is talking about and says, "Where is the pain in the foot?" I tell him.  He looks at the PA and they share that look of "just what I thought".  He then, without warning rolls himself up toward my head, pulls my arm out of it comfortable resting place, takes my pointer finger and pushes the wrong way back toward my arm.  Yeah, it was uncomfortable is it sounds.  My first thought was, "what the hell does bending my pointer finger in the wrong direction have to do with my foot!?"  Luckily he answered my question by speaking once again to the PA and not to me.  "As you can see, she is not a very loose woman."  WHATTT!???  I mean, I'm glad he  noticed...but dude...who says that!??  The PA looks at me.  I look at the ceiling.  The doc looks at the PA.  In typical Katie fashion (Kathryn would never do this), I try and make a joke.  I say, "Who knew a pointer finger could tell so much.  I'm glad to have this fact recorded in my chart (insert nervous high pitched giggle here)!"  Nothing.  No laugh.  No giggle. No smile.  No smirk signaling that he finally realized the awkward statement he had said. Not even an acknowledgment that I had even spoken. He continues on, "She has 5% hyperextension of the elbow. She is overall not very flexible." Okay, now I'm getting offended.  I am to flexible!!! (Picture me crossing my arms, and stomping my foot.)  He said this to the PA almost as if he was disappointed in me.  As if my lack of ability to touch my finger to the back of my arm was a huge let down for him.  If you're gonna start mouthing me, at least look me in the eye.....pansy.  Then he does it....the final straw right here.  If he just would have told me what he was about to do, I would have maybe been able to prepare myself.  But he commits the cardinal sin of touching Katie....he grabbed my knee cap.  It makes me want to throw up just typing this.  It makes my knees ache even thinking about it. BLAHHH!  He grabs my injured knee cap and pulls it as far as it would go towards him.  I jerk like someone just shot a couple thousand volts threw me.  HE DOESN'T SAY A WORD!!  He hold my leg down and DOES IT AGAIN!!!  Who the...?  What?! I am actually breaking into a cold sweat at this point.  Then he says, "Her knee cap is overly mobile." Well, duh, Sir....it certainly is now that you have just taken it from it comfortable resting place amongst it's friends...also known as ligaments."  So, that was about all I could take.  I sat up and asked him...what does it all MEAN!!!???  Okay, I didn't say that. My last ditch effort to make my co-pay worth more than an affirmative that I am neither a loose woman (which doesn't take an MD to realize thank-you-very-much) or able to control my body when someone takes my knee cap for a joy ride,  I ask him, "Um, so I guess my question is still the same as when I walked in the door....what's wrong with me and can I run?"  He looks at me like, "Were you not listening this entire time as I ran off a bunch of fancy medical stuff at my PA?" I look at him like, "No."  So he says, "Yes, of course you can run. (There's that disappointment again) It's not like you are ripping muscles or causing arthritis." I respond with, "Oh, okay...so I can run and it won't hurt!?"  He says, "Oh, it's gonna hurt.  (huh!?) But you're most likely not causing permanent damage."  In my head I say, "Well then I think that maybe you have missed the entire purpose of this visit.  I came so as to figure out a way to no longer have pain.  Katie - pain = happy runner.  That is what I am trying to get done here.  And by the way, if there is even a slight chance I am causing permanent damage, would you recommend I not run!?  Maybe!?" But instead I said, "Okay.  Is there anything you can recommend to help out with this pesky little pain issue? I would like to be able to move.  That would be ideal for me."  He then starts talking to the PA about stretches I should do.  This PA was really getting a lot of info.  I am so happy for HER.  If she ever had plantar fasiitis she will know what to do.  The end of the visit was highlighted by the fact that he made an unfunny joke about my "goth" (black) nail polish.  NOW he wants to joke!?

This whole interaction kinda reminded me of the time that I got tricked into getting a mustache wax.  I know....this needs some further explanation. Let me start by saying that I DON'T have a mustache.  Here's the story: A few years ago, I went to get my eyebrows waxed at this fancy Georgetown salon that some ladies had recommended to me.  I used pluck my own eyebrows until I moved to DC and found out that that is considered a serious crime of fashion.  I gave in to the peer pressure and paid someone lots of money to rip hair out of my facial area  by use of hot wax and a soul set on punishing the human race.  As the lady is lining up her super magnifying glass over my face, she gasps and jumps back as if just having been bit by something.  I jump as well and ask her if she is okay.  In her thick Russian accent she says, "They don't tell me that you need mustache wax too (then she mumbles something in Russian...and I get scared.)"  "Um, what do you mean I need a mustache wax?  I don't have a mustache."  You would have thought that I had just told her that I ran over her dog by the shocked expression that fell across her face.  "Look!"  she yells at me as she thrusts a magnified mirror and a light in front of my face.  Now, if you have ever looked in a magnified mirror you would know that those things are so powerful that you can see those little bugs that live in your eyelashes doing the electric slide.  She kept pointing at my upper lip saying, "see, see".  I thought to myself, "Wow, I wonder if NASA knows about this thing.  It wields some crazy power.  Not only does it show that I have hair on my upper lip but they look like the size of baseball bats!"  She won!  With my self esteem lowered and my defenses down, I ask her how much for a mustache wax.  She tells me it's $30.  I tell her that I would rather be a hairy freak than spend $30 having the hair ripped out of my lip.  Then she pulls out the big guns....."Then I will do for free. You can't leave here looking like this?"  WHAT!? I am actually paying some Russian lady with an attitude to verbally abuse me in the back of this high end salon!???  It made me want to go back to WV where they loved my lop-sided eyebrows and my lips...just they way they were.  It made me wonder why in the world no one had ever pulled me aside and told me that the three blond hairs on my lip were so atrocious that it caused this lady to almost have a heart attack after seeing them magnified.  Why oh why had I been allowed to walk around looking like a freak all my life....sanctuary! sanctuary!!!!!  After the whole ordeal I call my mom so as to question her love for me and as to why she never pointed out my stroke-inducing mustache.  I mean, if someone is so disturbed by it that they would offer to remove it for free...what kind of Godzilla situation did I have going on!???  When I told my mom the whole story, she calmly and kindly said to me, "Kate (she's allowed to call me Kate...because she gave birth to me and has not once grabbed my knee caps), you don't have a mustache.  You never have had a mustache.  Humans have hair on their face.  That's normal.  (I interrupted her here to explain that normal humans don't exist in DC...they are DC humans....they have been modified! They remove things.  Lots of things.) Did it ever occur to you that she offered to do it for free so that when the little hairs grew back they will be darker from not having seen the sun and then you will HAVE to go back to get them removed???"  SHOCK AND AWE!!! No way!  No way could that lady have tricked me into thinking there was something wrong with me in order to invest in future waxing visits!!!  Where am I???  What kind of world am I living in?  My mom was right.  And I knew deep in my heart the whole time that I didn't have a mustache, but I let some angry wax-wielding lady trick me into thinking there was something wrong with me.


As you have probably realized.  There was actually zero point what-so-ever for this blog today.  If I had to pull some lessons out of it I would say they would be the following:


1) When people are talking about you as if you aren't sitting right next to them, speak up and ask them to please treat you as a person so that you don't end up getting your knee caps manhandled without warning.

2) Don't put things off.  Just do them.  Don't be a procrastinator.  (This is a lesson I am still in the process of learning....baby steps). So far, I am super great at not procrastinating on fun things. 


3) I should have started my doctor's visit by saying this, "Hi my name is Katie.  K.A.T.I. E.  It's also written on this fancy hospital badge that I'm wearing just in case you forget my name and/or that I work down the hall from you. I like it when people speak directly to me as opposed to speaking to their PA as if she is my mother. Also, please don't touch my knee cap without warning...I really super hate to have my knees touched.  And since we're on the subject, please don't say weird things like, "she is obviously not a very loose woman" and then not laugh at all when I try to make a joke.   Laugh at my jokes. It makes me feel better.  Okay....let's get down to some doctorin'! (Insert awkward high five)"  Lesson learned.


4) People that are in the business of making money will do anything to sell something to you.  They will rip you apart and make you wish you were born a hairless cat.  Don't let them do this.  You are beautiful.

5) Magnified mirrors are from the hottest, darkest pits of hell.

6) You shouldn't talk about having a mustache when you're a single lady.  Even if you don't have a mustache. (Which I don't!)  It's just not a good idea.   

7) People kept telling me I looked good today, but I am pretty sure it's because I changed my hair part to the other side.  This isn't really a lesson, I just wanted to let you know.

8) Don't wear those pants that are fashionable right now that look like MC Hammer pants.  I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible, okay.....but seriously, they make you look like you crapped your pants. I never thought acid wash, Cosby sweaters, and shoulder pads would ever come back in style....but I was wrong.  Again...this has nothing to do with what I have been discussing, I'm just tired of trying not to judge people as they walk by me wearing them. 




I hope you have enjoyed this totally senseless post.  I will do my best to keep you updated on all of the embarrassing and uncomfortable moments of my life.  There will be plenty, believe me. 


Love,


Kathryn, Kate, Katelyn, Kathy......KATIE!